Monsoon Software

Continuing our round table on Launching and Building Companies, we have invited three distinguished panelists: Jack Raiton, Senior Fellow & Professor, Department of Management at OHSU-OGI and an angel investor, Dr. Rob Wiltbank, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Willamette University & Partner at Buerk Dale Victor LLC, a Seattle based growth stage VC firm Pen Goodale, Independent Consultant in Research & Business Analysis who previously was the Director of Research at OVP Venture Partners This is a great opportunity to discuss and get insights on conducting market research, assessing revenue potential, building a cohesive business plan, bootstrapping your team and raising capital.

Registration Details: Online - Members: $15; Non Members: $25 Onsite - Members: $20; Non Members: $30 Space limited to 20 people.

TiE Oregon Software & Internet SIG is kicking off the first session devoted to Launching and Building Software & Internet Companies.

We will be hosting three special guests who will share their experiences on How They Did It, and offer perspectives on company growth.

Michael Berkley - CEO, Splashcast Media. SplashCast is a content syndication service for social networks and mobile devices. SplashCast enables brand advertisers and content owners to reach out and engage consumers through micro-channels of content that people want and share. SplashCast has raised funds from prominent angel investors in the last two years. Mark Friess - President and Co-founder, wired.MD, Inc. wired.MD helps patients and their families make informed healthcare decisions through access to patient education videos and comprehensive solutions that also benefit treatment providers. Following angel investor funding between 2000 to 2005, wired.MD took on debt financing in 2004 and 2007 from PDC and others before being acquired by Krames/StayWell, a division of MediMedia USA in 2008. Ranjit Pandit - Founder and VP, RNA Networks. RNA Networks makes makes memory a shared network resource to deliver high performance on commodity hardware utilizing existing data center resources, without application changes. Investors include Oregon Angel Fund, Divergent Ventures, Menlo Ventures and Reference Capital. Whether you are thinking, planning or in the midst of a startup, this is your opportunity to get insights from the diversity of industry, funding and growth experiences represented by these entrepreneurs.

If you are on Facebook playing Texas Hold'Em, added LinkedIn applications leveraging your connections, or reviewed sales, marketing, HR or other applications at force.com, AppExchange, you are already in touch with the evolving world of Application Integration Platforms which have opened up new software opportunities for business and monetization.

Come join us for an overview of these Business Platforms, contribute to the discussion and learn:

• How are they different from other services such as Google App Engine and Amazon EC2?
• How does an application plug into these platforms?
• What data do they make available to application developers?
• What are the success and failure factors for such applications and business models?

Any student of business history knows that all great companies have evolved, sometimes radically, from their initial ideas and products. With software businesses , especially web based services, the ability to evolve is much more rapid, and coupled with the availability of quantifiable user feedback.

What are some of the development methodologies that actually work in the real world? How do you tie product iteration to tangible revenue opportunities? What kind of feedback should you seek from your customers? How do you listen to what your disinterested consumers are not telling you? How have other people approached this problem, where have they failed, and how have they succeeded?

Join us for a moderated discussion on this topic and bring your questions and insights.

Speaker(s) Contact & Others

Event Host Dhananjay Keskar Panelist Kanth Gopalpur, CEO, Monsoon Works Milind Pandit, Director of Product Management, Iovation